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Friday, January 1, 2016

Reading and Blogging Resolutions for 2016

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2016 brings you the best of all things bookish and beyond!

It’s also that time again—resolution time! For probably the first time ever, I did pretty well with following through on last year’s list. Since keeping things simple seemed to work out rather well, I’m going to stick with that approach for this year’s list:

Read 40 books. That’s been about my average the past two years, so maybe it’s my personal magic number or something, lol.

Go to YALLFest again. The girls and I had an absolute blast at this event last year, and we unanimously agreed that we’d like to return to Charleston in 2016, maybe with some extra time to explore this charming city more.

Write discussion posts regularly. This is something that I set out to do every year, but I struggle a lot with thinking up interesting topics. I’m participating in the 2016 Book Blog Discussion Challenge to motivate me to stay on track with this resolution.

Write more, period. I’d like to try my hand at creative writing, just for fun. It’s going to be very informal, basically me hand writing made up stuff in a notebook, lol.

NYC reads. New York City will always be special to me, and I’d like to start highlighting books I read that are set in NY. I haven’t yet quite figured how I’m going to do this—maybe a paragraph or two as part of a regular review, or maybe in a separate post.

New blog design. I love our current design, but after almost four years, it’s time for a change. This one is also not mobile device-friendly, and for that reason alone needs an update. Changing things up scares the crap out of me in general, and I’m also daunted by this task because I’m not very artistic. I’ve got some serious HTML5/CSS studying to do this year as well, but I actually love the coding stuff.

I typically write a post in the fall featuring all of the upcoming books that I can’t wait to read, but there are so many amazing titles releasing in the first half of 2016 that I NEED to mention them NOW.

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comments:

Mmmmm NYC books! Now that I've been, I feel like that city will forever be a part of me. I desperately want to go again to focus solely on exploring and not having to spend all my time at BEA - not that I'm complaining, it just didn't leave tons of time for tourist things. Needless to say, I'll be curious about the NYC books you come up with :D I'm happy you guys are doing YALLFest again this year, I'll be living vicariously through you ladies I guess haha! Best of luck with all the goals you've set for yourself and the blog in the new year!

As for the books you're eagerly awaiting? YES to AGoS, Passenger AND of course, Raven King!! LET GANSEY LIVE. Happy New Year Lee ~ and May the Force be with You :D

I know what you mean about not having too much time left for sightseeing when you go to a bookish event. The schedule is so tightly packed, and you're trying to make the most out of every minute. You should definitely take a trip to NYC just for adventuring! Even with all of the years I lived there, I didn't even come close to doing all of the things!

GAH, there are so many amazing new releases on the horizon! And that's not even counting A Court of Mist and Fury and ToG #5! May the force be with you, too, Micheline! Um, and with Gansey, too; he needs all the help he can get to live through The Raven King! XD

I'm so excited for both, and I'm glad that their release date is almost here because I wasn't going to hold out much longer waiting for them, lol. Happy New Year to you, too, and all the best in 2016! :D

I think your blog design is so cute and unique, but I always love to see new looks. so can't wait to see what you come up with! And I did not know Sarah Rees Brennan is coming out with a new book! It sounds fantastic, and I love the cover so I'm definitely picking it up. It's great that it will help you with your goal of reading more NYC books. :)

Ally and Melissa have come up with some really awesome ideas for a new design; now we just have to pick one and start drawing, lol. I love the humor in SRB's books, and I hope there'll be plenty of it in Tell the Wind and Fire. But I also remember the killer cliffhangers in the Lynburn Legacy books, so I'll try to steel myself ahead of time for one, just in case! :D

All great goals! I would love going to YALLFest. It sounds like a ton of fun. I also can't wait to see what y'all come up with for a blog design. I started one a while back and never had the time to complete it. I know you guys will have something unique and interesting. I also want to read all the books you listed! I look forward to seeing what you think about them.

YALLFest was amazing! We were talking the other day about how we can't wait to go back and wish it were sooner, lol. There are so many fantastic books coming out in the first half of 2016 alone; it's looking like this is going to be an exceptional reading year for everyone! :D